This week we have been learning about networking as it relates to the One Laptop Per Child project. Let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth to start off with and talk about the Al Jazeera interview with Nicholas Negroponte:
Basically, in this interview we get a broad overview of the overarching goals of the One Laptop Per Child Project from inception to the product as finalized in 2007. After previewing in 2005, the project came widely under criticism both for lack of plausibilty as well as a widespread lack of sympathy for it’s mission: to provide cheap, durable, low power laptops to the most impoverished children in the world. Negroponte makes the point (which I didn’t consider but is totally true) children are “wired to learn” and that providing them with the basic tools to do so as well as a portal into oceans of material to learn from is a goal that is not just worthy or our attention but necessary for the world’s poor.
The calls and written questions fielded by Negroponte covered the gamut of the public’s concerns and skepticism about the project, for example the first call hit the debate dead on when they asked: why are we buying laptops for people who really need food and clean water?
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Check it out. Again, it’s probably bigger and better actually at Blip.
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Here it is:
*quick update, to watch it big enough to actually see what the heck I am pointing to/shifting/highlighting click to the blip.tv link on the bottom and expand that sh**! *
Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video.
For now, watch it here!
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Hey gang,
How is the best way to compress a fatty Quicktime screencast file to get it up on wordpress without 1. buying new software or 2. losing picture quality?
I appreciate all input on this dilemma, my post is pending on it.
Danke
What a relevant segway between my travelogue and this week’s topic AND Joe’s research advice…
Also, a pretty well done little vid.
More to come gang, oh so much more.
Basically I have been trying to Shift Space up my personal blog, Cultural Spelunking and have not succeeded. I installed Grease Monkey and Shift Space, however when I go to any new website I have to resign in and nothing seems to happen when I write a note and click save. It doesn’t look like it selects, the Shift count on the page stays the same.
I am still repping shiftspace though. I already have my roommate stoked on it. I can’t wait to correct my cool web app illiteracy (bc let’s be real, I am sure it’s something I am doing wrong) and get more of my friends on Shift Space so we can have even more ways to distract each other online.
Do go check out my blog though 
some of my random findings, arranged in a semi-engaging fashion...
and check out
I am experiencing extreme technological frustration with this challenging new post requirement. I suppose that is the point though…
Hey New Media gang,
Here is my story: I am working on a delicious little info graphic/basic basic after effects generated means of posting this blog. However, I am entirely at a loss trying to learn my way around the basics of this program. So basically, I am working on it and hopefully will have made some baby steps soon here so as to present this travelogue in a cool way.
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I decided to respond to Larry Sanger’s response:
How can both I reject epistemic collectivism and yet say that Wikipedia is a great project, which I do? Well, the problem is that epistemic collectivists like Wikipedia but for the wrong reasons. What’s great about it is not that it produces an averaged view, an averaged view that is somehow better than an authoritative statement by people who actually know the subject. That’s just not it at all. What’s great about Wikipedia is the fact that it is a way to organize enormous amounts of labor for a single intellectual purpose.
— Larry Sanger
Because, quite simply, I like it best. I agree with his reaction to Lanier, which is mixed agreement and disagreement. Read More »
After this travelogue, I have come to a few personal conclusions about the role the internet plays in the debate around net neutrality. Mostly, I have decided that in most cases, the internet merely intensifies the polarization around the issue, creating the “echo chamber” effect, and likely influencing very few.
Some of these arguments are more graceful than others.
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